| Kansas Unit 16 - burned |
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By:
writer
Date:09-Mar-17
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OK, this is where someone gets on and whines that their hunting spot in Unit 16 has burned, (Already heard it, and read it)
Here's the deal - 85% of Clark County burned as did quite a bit of Comanche County.
More than 500,000 acres total, just in those two counties.
And I don't mean a simple grass fire in remote pastures. Thousands of cattle were killed or had to be shot. One rancher I interviewed lost a conservative $1.56 million in born or unborn calves, not to mention close to a $1 in fencing. He cried and subbed several times as we did the first tour of some pastures. (see link)
30 structures destroyed, many of them inhabited houses.
Some only made it out in their pickups and what they had in the cabs with them.
The area looks like the Sahara, much, much worse than the Anderson Creek Fire last March.
One good thing is the amount of aid - hay, fencing, labor - coming in from other ag areas.
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By:
Nick Muche
Date:09-Mar-17
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Unreal!
Prayers sent to all of those fine folks affected. I hope this all passes fast but it likely will take years to get back to normal.
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By:
t-roy
Date:09-Mar-17
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Very tough thing to deal with for sure. Hopefully they can get some much needed rain in the parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas soon.
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By:
Scooby-doo
Date:09-Mar-17
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Unreal, I hope everyone can come through this okay !!! Terrible shame!! Shawn
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By:
Scooby-doo
Date:09-Mar-17
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Just watched the whole thing and looked at pics. bought tears too my eyes!! Again I hope everyone can recover from this, sending my prayers!! Shawn
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By:
midwest
Date:09-Mar-17
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Wow! Prayers to those affected.
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By:
Ermine
Date:09-Mar-17
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I'm out here on this fire. They brought Firefighters in from Colorado. It looks like a bomb went off! 500,000 acres wow!
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By:
EmbryOklahoma
Date:09-Mar-17
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Wow! Such a bad deal. Hoping rain comes and comes soon.
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By:
Paul@thefort
Date:09-Mar-17
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Same thing just happened in eastern Colorado the other day. 50 sq mile burned, 200 cattle dead, 4 houses and other out building gone. High winds and very dry conditions across the mid west.
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By:
t-roy
Date:09-Mar-17
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Where are you at Ermine? Kansas or Oklahoma?
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By:
Trial153
Date:09-Mar-17
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Terrible. Thinking of all my buddies in Kansas and hoping they and their families stay safe along with everyone else. Such a great place with great people.
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By:
GF
Date:09-Mar-17
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Sounds like the land may recover a helluvalot faster than the people!
Wow.
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By:
Ermine
Date:09-Mar-17
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I'm in Ashland Kansas. Fire is looking good at this point. But major damage has been done
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By:
drycreek
Date:09-Mar-17
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Sad deal. We went through it in 2011. Everywhere you looked it seemed you saw the smoke of another fire. Came pretty close to me a couple times, but the area around Bastrop was a real disaster. Thank God for firefighters !
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By:
writer
Date:09-Mar-17
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Dang Ermine, wish I'd have known. I just left there a few hours ago, obviously. Where are you from in Colorado?
The Springs? I talked quail, pheasants and waterfowl hunting at the high school with a firefighter from Colorado Springs.
Paul, sorry, it's not the same thing. This will be the largest private grassland fire in U.S. history. They keep saying "30 structures," ....but it sure seems a lot more than judging from all the houses I saw destroyed.
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By:
Medicinemann
Date:10-Mar-17
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Is the majority of livestock killed by the intense heat....or does the smoke kill most of them? A lot of the animals in the videos don't look burned.....
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By:
writer
Date:10-Mar-17
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Jake, I apologize. I have not watched much of the videos. We've been working pretty hard, trying to get the public informed and, hopefully, help those impacted by the fires. And, to sound a bit cliche, I saw enough of it when I was out there.
The dead cattle I saw were danged sure burned. They had to be. 85% of the county burned. About all that did not were the two towns, (some heroic stories around those) and the wheatfields. As you know, they're green this time of the year, and short.
Jake, coyotes died in the fire, and you know they can survive about anything. I saw one live coyote and I'm pretty sure he was carrying enough burn wounds to die, eventually.
I'm guessing smoke got a bunch. The only human fatality was because of smoke. Well, maybe that's just what they're telling his family.
Hundreds, maybe thousands eventually, died from bullets, and some way past when they deserved to die quickly. Cowboys are still riding the big pastures on horses, looking for cattle that may be obscured from a box canyon, or are simply camouflaged against a landscape that's as blackened as the area.
Many of the cows that somehow survived have their udders burned so bad they'll never nurse a calf. What to do? Shoot them to put them out of their misery? Leave them and see if they can recover enough to at least be shipped to a meat plant.
Ranchers have spent long minutes looking at a burned cow that is still standing. If there's enough of an ear tag to read, they may recognize the old girl. Shoot her out of respect and love, or give her a chance to beat the odds and make it, out of respect and love?
The attached link is a story on a friend, Larry Konrade, who many of you know from Tamarack Outfitters, who spent Tuesday shooting cattle for ranchers. He did not want to do it but he had to do it for the sake of the cattle and the ranchers he serves as an outfitter, a CPA and friend.
This weekend he'll be hauling out alfalfa bales, and corn, trying to see what deer survived. We don't know if the does that made it were so stressed they aborted their fawns.
As for deer, the sad part is that this should have been the first season of decent bucks that had been born since the drought.
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By:
writer
Date:10-Mar-17
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That's what the cattle looked like that I saw.
Trust me, if you were to drive from Protection south and/or east, so many of the homes you waved at as you traveled about are gone.
Note the ash has blown off the sandhill country. It's still on the ground north of town.
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By:
writer
Date:10-Mar-17
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By:
Habitat1
Date:10-Mar-17
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Ermine, were you in the group of 3 trucks from CO?
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By:
Ermine
Date:10-Mar-17
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I'm From central Colorado. Platte Canyon Fire. There is a lot of engines from Colorado out here.
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Date:10-Mar-17
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Writer, Has a fund been established for those in need in KS?
If so, please share the info. Thanks, and prayers sent.
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By:
Genesis
Date:10-Mar-17
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Prayers for area sent....very sad
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By:
Mark Watkins
Date:10-Mar-17
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Prayers sent!
Ermine, be careful out there!
Mark
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By:
LINK
Date:10-Mar-17
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Ermine thanks for your work. Early Monday afternoon three fires broke out in this area. The one your on is by far the biggest but all three total over 800,000 acres. Most of the acreage was burned in 12 hours. It's amazing how fast a fire moves on the plains with a constant 30+ mph wind. It's amazing there weren't more human casualties.
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By:
LINK
Date:10-Mar-17
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By:
writer
Date:10-Mar-17
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Frank, scroll down to the bottom of this article for contact information as per donations.
Every dime will help.
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By:
Fulldraw1972
Date:10-Mar-17
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Late last summer it was rain non stop. We couldn't get anything done on the project. January roles around we get 3" of rain and major icing. Power lines go down everywhere. It's been dry ever since and then came the big winds. One of my cranes registered 88.7 mph wind gust.
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By:
Habitat1
Date:10-Mar-17
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We had a task force there from 6pm to 3am a day and ahalf later by then there wasn't much running fire left,In Protection the first night,Ashland next day and night
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By:
writer
Date:10-Mar-17
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Not sure what you're referring to, Fulldraw. Where, please? Thanks.
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By:
SB
Date:10-Mar-17
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We had the same thing in western Mt where I used to live, with the wildfires of 2000. Everywhere I used to hunt was toast!
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By:
LKH
Date:11-Mar-17
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It's ironic that the bounty that occurs with late season growth and makes the ranchers look forward to some unexpected grass to help through the winter can turn in to a caldron in a moment. I can only hope that those who experienced such loss can get enough assistance to get through.
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By:
LKH
Date:11-Mar-17
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It's ironic that the bounty that occurs with late season growth and makes the ranchers look forward to some unexpected grass to help through the winter can turn in to a caldron in a moment. I can only hope that those who experienced such loss can get enough assistance to get through.
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By:
writer
Date:11-Mar-17
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Larry, the rancher I road with saw such irony, and partially blamed himself. He said they looked at their pastures not long ago and commented on how much grass was out there, saying it could be forage or it could be fuel. But he said coming off of four years of devastating drought, it was hard to graze everything, holding nothing in reserve. As well as for their own cattle, most ranchers like to leave a few pastures lush in case a neighbor needs a place to put his own cattle for a while. What they need more than anything, is a nice two-inch rain that takes about three days to total. Nothing in the forecast, though.
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By:
Fulldraw1972
Date:11-Mar-17
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Writer, I am referring to Bloom, Ashland, Minneola, Dodge city area. The project I am on covers that general area. The rain (ice) back in January caused something like 10,000 power outages. Between that and now the fires it's been a ruff winter early spring for the area.
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By:
kylet
Date:11-Mar-17
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By:
writer
Date:11-Mar-17
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Full, still don't know what you do, sorry? (May have missed it in earlier posts)
This link shows that America isn't broken when it comes to rallying around a tragedy. Also information on how to help those who are impacted by the terrible fires.
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By:
BULELK1
Date:12-Mar-17
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I just got thru going thru your links writer------ So very Sad and devastating.
Good luck, Robb
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By:
Ksgobbler
Date:12-Mar-17
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I've got friends out there working the fires. Engines from my old department went to Hutch first then got bumped down to Clark County. I would've loved to have gone. Years ago I pushed for Firewise communities in this county and got laughed at. I bet it would gain traction now. With the fuel that was out there we knew it was a matter of time.
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By:
Habitat1
Date:13-Mar-17
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I agree,homeowners may have saved alot of damage in Reno but it is like that in alot of additions around the state
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By:
writer
Date:15-Mar-17
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They're now saying more than 130 structures destroyed or damaged. At least 20 of them were inhabited.
Cattle losses could be near 9,000, not including newborn or unborn calves.
Fencing alone, in Clark County, could be upwards of $40 million.
I did see two coveys of quail yesterday, in an area that had a little brush that wasn't totally destroyed.
Talked to a guy who had to shoot and bury 40 cattle yesterday, and about 170 today.
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By:
ROUGHCOUNTRY
Date:15-Mar-17
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My buddy at Bucklin Tractor told me several of the large ranches with big livestock losses DID NOT have livestock insured because the insurance premium was too high. Some prized animals were insured but not the entire herd. He checked on a cattle lease / hunting area of his and several deer were laying down and couldn't get up like they had lung problems...... one acted blind and walked into the pickup partially blinded. You could just walk up to the sick ones.
He had over 100 deer and saw less than 20 still alive.....had 200 turkeys and saw 2 Toms and 7 hens although they could have at least went airborne somewhere else.
And never saw a single coyote when they used to be infested.....
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By:
Thornton
Date:16-Mar-17
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